Thomas Wictor

Posts Tagged ‘groupthink’

Jante is a word that all westerners should know

The Law of Jante (pronounced “yan-TUH”) originally applied to only the Scandinavian countries, but it’s spread like cancer. Basically the Law of Jante states that individual achievement is illegitimate because it makes the group look bad. Well, the group can go to hell. The group doesn’t pay my taxes, pay my medical bills, pay for…

 

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Be like my mother

My mother and I didn’t get along. It wasn’t her fault; I can’t explain our problem because that would violate her privacy. She was stuck with me. Staunchly pro-life, she couldn’t have had me aborted, and everyone knew she was pregnant with me, so she couldn’t have given me up for adoption. In the last…

 

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Not even George Orwell thought of it

My mother CeeCee Lower Wictor was a rebel. Her rebellion took the form of quietly, politely, and very gently refusing to conform to society’s expectations of what a Mexican-American woman born in 1928 was supposed to be. She and I never got along—until the last three years of her life. Then I became her closest…

 

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